"I'd heard so much of Abe Lincoln," said Carson, "that when this speculator who's trying to do me hired all the big lawyers in St. Louis, I just went over to Springfield, Illinois, to get Abe. When I saw him I rather hesitated about hiring such a looking skeesicks, but when I came to talk with him, he did the hesitating. I asked him what he'd charge for defending a land-suit in St. Louis. He told me. I sez: 'All right. You're hired. You're my lawyer.'
"'Wait a bit,' sez he.
"'What for?' sez I. 'I'll pay what you said.'
"'That ain't all,' sez he. 'Before I take your money, Kit, I've got to know your side of the case is the right side.'
"'What difference does that make to a lawyer?' sez I.
"'It makes a heap o' difference to this lawyer,' sez he. 'You've got to prove your case to me before I'll try to prove it to the court. If you ain't in the right, Abe Lincoln won't be your lawyer.'
"Darned if he didn't make me prove I was in the right, too, before he'd touch my money. No wonder they call him 'Honest Abe.'"
It took Lincoln a couple of days to win Kit Carson's suit. During those two days young Strong saw much of him and came to admire the sterling qualities of the man. Lincoln, too, liked this young college-bred fellow from the East, unaffected, well-mannered, friendly, and gay. There was the beginning of a friendship between the Westerner and the Easterner. Thereafter they wrote each other occasionally. When Lincoln served his one brief term in Congress, Mr. Strong spent a week with him in Washington and asked him (but in vain) to visit him in New York.
So, when this new giant came out of the West and Illinois gave her greatest son to the country, as its President, Mr. Strong went to Washington to see him inaugurated and took with him his boy Tom, as his father had taken him in 1829 to Andrew Jackson's inauguration.
Washington was still a great shabby village, not much more attractive March 4, 1861, than it was March 4, 1829. The crowds at the two inaugurations were much alike. In both cases the favorite son of the West had won at the polls. In both cases the West swamped Washington. But in 1829 there was jubilant victory in the air. In 1861 there was somber anxiety. Seven Southern States had "seceded" and had formed another government. Other States were upon the brink of secession. Was the great democratic experiment of the world about to end in failure? Would there be civil war? What was this unknown man out of the West going to do? Could he do anything?